Persisting Symptoms After COVID-19.

Dtsch Arztebl Int

Institute for General Practice and Interprofessional Care, University Hospital Tübingen; Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and Applied Biometrics, University Hospital Tübingen; Center for Public Health and Healthcare Research, University Hospital Tübingen.

Published: March 2022

AI Article Synopsis

  • A population-based study in Germany examined symptoms and characteristics of patients experiencing long COVID, revealing that 72.6% of hospitalized and 46.2% of non-hospitalized patients reported ongoing symptoms at least 12 weeks post-infection.
  • The most common long-term symptoms identified were fatigue, physical exhaustion, concentration difficulties, and loss of taste and smell.
  • Findings indicate that long COVID significantly affects quality of life and highlights the need for a multidisciplinary approach to manage varied symptoms, though the study lacked a control group for comparison.*

Article Abstract

Background: After recovering from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a considerable number of patients report long-term sequelae. The epidemiologic data vary widely in the studies published to date, depending on the study design and the patient cohorts analyzed. Using a population-based approach, we report symptoms and clinical characteristics following COVID-19 (long COVID), focusing on symptoms ≥ 12 weeks (post-COVID-19).

Methods: In three German administrative districts, all adult patients with a diagnosis of COVID-19 confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) between March and September 2020 (n = 4632) were invited to complete a questionnaire. Predictors for post-COVID-19 were identified by multiple ordinal regression analysis. Study registration: DRKS00023069.

Results: A total of 1459 patients were included in the study, 175 (12%) of whom had been hospitalized for treatment of the acute phase of COVID-19. The prevalence of post-COVID-19 was 72.6% (n = 127) and 46.2% (n = 588) for hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients, respectively. The most frequently occurring long-term symptoms were fatigue (41.5% of all symptoms ≥ 12 weeks, n = 297), physical exhaustion (40.8%, n = 292), difficulty in concentrating (30.6%, n = 219), and loss of the senses of taste (25.9%, n = 185) and smell (25.5%, n = 182). Quality of life was significantly impaired in patients with post-COVID-19. The strongest risk factors for post-COVID-19 were female sex, overall severity of comorbidities, and severity of acute COVID-19.

Conclusion: Patients who are not hospitalized also frequently experience continued symptoms following COVID-19. The heterogeneity of symptoms calls for a multi - disciplinary stepped-care approach, for which identification of patients at risk is crucial. A limitation of the study is the lack of a control group.

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Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9215272PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.m2022.0147DOI Listing

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